A transcript: 2:38 a.m. in the garden of evil
Leaked tape of meeting hastily called in the White House situation room, 2:38 a.m., Thursday, March 2, 2017.
Reince Priebus: “OK, OK, everybody. Settle down. The Boss has some things to say.”
DT: “Hold on a minute. Gotta finish this Tweet (murmurs beneath breath) d-e-m-o-c-r-a-t-s d-i-s-h-o-n—o-r f-a-l-l-e-n h-e-r-o-s w-i-f-e- Hey, people, whaddya think? End it with Sad! Or Disgusting! Or Failing?”
Group in unision: “Pathetic.”
DT: “Can’t I get anyone to agree with anything I do any more? You know, I won this election by 300 million electoral college votes. And did you see the size of that crowd at the inauguration? It was bigger than a KKK convention in Kosciusko, Mississippi.”
Kellyanne Conway: “Mr. President, the agenda?”
DT: “OK, now about my speech to Congress. It was the greatest speech I’ve given, wouldn’t you agree, and I’ve given some of the best speeches in the world since Caesar addressed his troops at Waterloo. And the gestures I used. The best ever. Ever!” (Turns to Spicer). I like the pointy finger one around the thumb and middle finger zero best, don’t you think? Makes me look bigly. Kingly.”
Sean Spicer: “You each have a copy of the talking points the president and I have devised to addressed the Russian issue…”
DT: “There is no Russian issue. It’s fake news, Sam…”
Sean: “It’s Sean, Mr. President…”
DT: “Whatever. I’m the president, okay. I can talk to whoever I want about anything I want. Look…I picked fights with Mexico – an entire country, and you can bet your burrito the Mexicans are running scared now – and the prime minister of Australia, and I held hands with the Prime Minister of England, all in the first two weeks. I mean, no president has held another head of state’s hand since Eisenhower did it with Fidel Castro over that fake missile crisis.”
Reibus: “Mr. President, it was JFK, and he never held Castro’s hand. And the crisis was very real. Like this one. Now, what are we going to do about Sessions.”
Jeff Sessions: “I’m right here. Stop talking about me as though I’m not in the room.”
DT: “You’re not, as I’m concerned. You did a lousy job lying during your confirmation hearing, and that’s what got us into this mess. OK, what do we do? Look, we’ve all spoken to the Russians. It’s what we do. I’m the president. I talk to a lot of people, and they all remember me, but I don’t have to remember them. Tell that to the fake news media. And point out that circulation at the failing New York Times has plummeted since they decided to take me on…”
Conway: “Actually, Mr. President, circulation at the Times, the Washington Post, and other major media we have attacked is on the rise…”
Steve Bannon: “But nothing like the success we’ve seen at Breitbart! We’re bigger than Huffington Post and PornHub combined! We’re the most popular reading matter since the Ten Commandments.”
DT: “Ten Commandments! I like it. Let’s use that as a slogan for my daily executive orders. We can do 10 a day, right? (To Spicer): Set that up, and start drafting orders. (To Reibus): Speaking of orders, call Domino’s and order five large with extra pepperoni, willya? And tell ’em well done this time, or we’ll have ICE pay them a little visit. (To Bannon): PornHub’s great, isn’t it? The best….”
Sessions: “Mr. President, there’s serious talk now about bringing a special prosecutor on to examine the administration’s relationship with Russia before and during the election….”
Bannon: “Thanks to you! (Turns to Trump). Fire him!”
Trump: “OK. (To Sessions): You’re fired.”
Spicer: “Not that easy, Mr. President.”
Conway: “I’m afraid he’s right, Mr. President.”
DT: “Why not? I mean, I’m the president, right? Who’s that guy, said on CNN, the loser network, that my decisions will not be questioned? Get him in here! He understands that I can do whatever I want with Sessions.”
Sessions: “I’m right here!”
DT: “I can fire him, hire an ex-KGB agent to fill in as Attorney General, and grab Putin’s girlfriend’s boobs all in the same day if I want. Your job is to make me look smart. Look how you spun that story about me ordering a $100 steak well done and drenching it in ketchup. Sales of Trump steaks are through the roof at retail stores around the world.”
Reibus: “Actually, Mr. President, Trump steaks haven’t been commercially available for nearly a year. It’s headed in the same direction as Trump water and Trump airlines.”
Bannon: “Mr. President, I’m afraid this bigger than the steak disaster, or even the Flynn debacle. We can’t just slip away from this. The media, and the public, and now Congress are increasing the pressure for an independent investigation. We need a strategy to survive this. Even Mitch McConnell’s emerged from the outhouse to speak out about it, which is a bit like watching Rumpelstiltskin at a Beyonce concert. I saw him on TV. His chicken neck was bobbing up and down like a turkey two days before Thanksgiving, he was so scared. Deer in headlights, that one, as though someone shut down his still and took away his coon hunting rifle.”
DT: “Let’s blame it on McConnell, then. Let him take the fall for it.”
Bannon: “That’s not how it works, Mr. President, at least until I can complete the dismantling of government I have in mind. McConnell isn’t the lead dog on this matter – you are, I’m afraid.”
DT: “OK, so I’ll just blame it on someone else in the administration. (Turns to Conway). Kellyanne. I haven’t fired you yet, have I? I can blame it on you, say that photo of you kneeling on the Oval Office sofa was the final outrage, and that you orchestrated the whole thing with Russia in order to promote your cosmetics business there. Whaddya call it, Bolshoi Spackle or something like that? Yeah, I’ll say that you wanted to do something as big as Ivanka’s clothing line and decided Russia was your ticket, made all these calls and set up these talks for your personal benefit. It’ll work: the public’s used to hearing crap like that about us. So, you take the fall.”
Reibus: “Excuse me, Mr. President, but there’s an urgent call for you on line 1.”
DT: “Look, I’m the middle of an important meeting here. This is one of my administration’s biggest crises, and you can take my word for it, there’ve been thousands. Hundreds of thousands, even. Millions. I’m not even Tweeting, fer cryin’ out loud, this is so important. So if it’s not Domino’s or Robert Mercer, tell ‘em I’m busy…”
Reibus: “I think you’ll want to take this. It’s Vladimir Putin.”